Tuesday August 26th 2025
Edinburgh’s new Voi hire e-bikes
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
With Edinburgh’s new Voi bikes being available for hire from Wednesday 3rd of September, the Swedish ensure ‘preventing vandalism and theft is essential’ despite concerns.
The capital’s last bike hire scheme, Just Eat Bikes, saw one in four bikes having to be repaired every week due to vandalism damage in 2020. With Edinburgh’s last bike hire scheme ending in 2021 due to cost issues, Swedish company Voi won a competitive tender process to become the sole e-bike operator in the city.
The Swedish tech firm already has successful bike hire schemes in major European cities such as, London, Munich and Barcelona, now taking their state of the art e-bikes and rich experience to the Scottish capital.
Planning to put 800 bikes onto the streets in the future, concerns rise surrounding issues with vandalism and theft of long-awaited cycle hires.
Voi ensured that the modern tech that has ‘come leaps and bounds in the past few years’ ensures that the vehicles are much more durable than bikes under previous schemes. With modern geolocating technology installed into the vehicles they can almost stamp out worries of theft alongside being notified when a vehicle has been damaged.
James Bolton, Voi UK’s General Manager said: “We’re aware that preventing vandalism and theft is essential to our e-bikes in Edinburgh succeeding. We want to offer the people of Edinburgh an affordable and sustainable way to travel around the city.”
“Our vehicles are cutting-edge with the latest hardware and geolocating technology to stop thefts and vandalism and track vehicles when they occur.”
With plenty of experience working in cities with waterways, due to the implemented geolocating technology Voi can efficiently retrieve vehicles from canals and other body’s of water if need be.
The cycle hire scheme being implemented at the beginning of next month will ‘heavily complement the existing active travel and transport infrastructure and enhance connectivity’, according to the Transport and Environemnt Convener for the City of Edinburgh Council, Stephen Jackson.
The Swedish firm have ensured that they are working closely with Edinburgh council to make an affordable scheme alonsgide commit to community engagement in the capital. This effort towards community engagement is in hopes to reduce the levels of vandalism.
James Bolton added: “We are also fully committed to community engagement programmes to embed our schemes within the local community to minimise vandalism and theft, and build understanding of safety practices and the schemes’ benefits.”
Introducing two models to the city, the Explorer 4 e-bike and the Explorer Light 1, both Voi and the Edinburgh council hope that the sheme will run smoothly and provide a mode of inter-city transport that will both cut congestion and reduce emissions.
Beggining the scheme at a low price of £2.20 for 20 minutes, Voi bikes will be available to the public on the 3rd of September.
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